Suchergebnisse

The general objective of this study was to provide analysis regarding the trend of poverty in the Philippines from year 1998 to 2008 based on the data of the SWS survey. Specifically, it aimed to describe the method by which the Social Weather Stations (SWS) conducts self-rated poverty survey; discuss the trends of the self-rated poverty in the Philippines and in the four major areas; compare the self-rated poverty with the official poverty incidence; describe the trends of the macroeconomic variables in relation with self-rated poverty; and determine the macroeconomic factors that affect self-rated poverty. For the first four objectives, the study made use of descriptive approach. For the last objective, the study employed Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) to determine the effect of each macroeconomic factor that could affect self-rated poverty. SWS uses face to face interviews of national samples of 1,200 statistically representative households in conducting standard SWS survey. In each survey, the household head, who is the respondent to the questions, speaking in behalf of the entire family, is asked to point to where he/she thinks the household fares in a showcard featuring only the word POOR, the negative term NOT POOR, and a line in-between. On the average, self-rated poverty is lowest in NCR; mid-level in the Balance of Luzon; and highest in Visayas and Mindanao. However, the differentials between locations are changing. There were periods when the trends in self-rated poverty and the official poverty incidence are contradicting and there were also periods where they move in the same direction. Moreover, it was observed that SRP tends to be always higher than the official poverty incidence. In the descriptive analysis of the trends of macroeconomic variables in relation to SRP, inflation and unemployment rates were observed to have positive relationship with the trends of SRP in general. Moreover, GDP and GRDP are found to be negatively related with SRP. Only unemployment significantly affects self-rated poverty (SRP) and as expected, the relationship of the two is positive. SRPs of NCR, Visayas and Minadanao, differ from SRP Philippines by the numerical value of their coefficients. Only debt service, growth rate of gini coefficient and growth rate of share of educational system budget appropriation to GDP are significantly correlated with the growth rate of SRP. The study therefore concludes that unemployment rate truly affects people's perception whether they are poor or not, thus, affecting self-rated poverty. Policies regarding labor status and programs that will generate more jobs must be pursued for these will surely improve the welfare of the people. Debt service, gini coefficient and the share of educational system budget appropriation to GDP are the other factors that also seem to affect people's welfare. The government, therefore, must generate more revenues in order to pay the country's debt and at the same time, allocate more funds for public finance. Extra efforts in redistributing income and assets to achieve more equitable distribution must be exerted. Lastly, the government should not only allocate resources to our educational system. They should also know which part of the educational system must be funded more.